Spatial and Social Divisions within British Cities: Beyond Residualisation

Abstract

The literature on changing residential patterns in cities attributes different degrees of importance to economic restructuring and to changes in housing. In Britain, where a significant share of housing provision is not provided through the market, the references to socio-tenurial polarisation and the residualisation of council housing have emphasised the importance of housing tenure. The nature of housing restructuring has affected both the pace and pattern of urban change. At the end of the 1990s problems associated with deprived neighbourhoods are arousing policy attention and this has given further prominence to housing tenure differences and residualisation. This paper reviews evidence which suggests that a wider range of housing related factors are now influencing changing patterns in British cities. These especially relate to divisions within home ownership and to differences related to ethnicity and cohort. The evidence presented cautions against placing tenure at the centre of analysis of change and policy responses or equating neighbourhoods of social rented housing with area deprivation.